In posting about the Biden ad, “Flag,” I compared it to a Reagan ad, “Morning in America” (officially called “Prouder, Stronger, Better”). Just how closely did the tone of these two ads match? Click and see for yourself. Compare the imagery, color palette, and music of the two. While nobody can duplicate Hal Riney’s voice (he wrote and narrated the Reagan spot), the voice-over on the Biden ad comes close.
MASHUP: The end of Reagan’s “Prouder, Stronger, Better”/ The beginning of Biden’s “Flag”
Yet, as close as they are in tone, the two ads couldn’t be more distinct in strategy.
The age-old formula for political communication prescribes a balance between “pointing with pride” and “viewing with alarm.” In “Morning again,” Hal Riney dials the pointing-with-pride to up to eleven, while barely whispering the view-with-alarm—and that, only vaguely (“Why would we… return to where we were?”) The Biden spot reverses that mix. While its tone may be warm and fuzzy, it’s a powerful attack ad with a blaring alarm about threats to our core freedoms from an “extreme movement.”
I don’t know when the “pride/alarm” formulation first appeared, but in trying to find out, I learned that it was already well-established when Franklin Roosevelt was in the White House. Here’s an article from 1944—back when Biden and I were both toddlers.
What the Reagan spot accomplished
The 1984 election was a blowout, with Reagan winning everything except for his opponent’s home state and the District of Columbia.
Electoral Votes, 1984: Reagan (525) vs. Mondale (13)
That sweep may cloud our memory of the fact that, midway through his first term, President Reagan’s approval ratings had plummeted to 35%—two points below Biden’s lowest and barely above Trump’s low of 34%. In January of 1983, Reagan’s disapproval reached as high as 56%. By March of that year, a Gallup poll showed Democrat Walter Mondale defeating Reagan, 47% to 41%. As historian Michael Beschloss noted in The New York Times, the “Morning Again” ad, “helped push many of Mr. Reagan’s problems to the periphery.”
A masterpiece of gauzy misdirection, the ad showed happy, optimistic people (pretty much all white, of course), going to work, buying new homes, getting married. Fully 25% of the running time is a wedding montage. Reagan’s voice was never heard and he didn’t even appear in the spot—except at the very end as an image on a campaign button. (The requirement for the candidate to declare, “I approve this message” wouldn’t come into force until the passage of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act of 2002.)
The spot proved one of the most effective political ads in history, leaving Mondale helplessly complaining:
'Their commercial's called the ‘new morning’ in America. It's all picket fences and puppy dogs. No one’s hurting. No one’s alone. No one’s hungry. No one's unemployed. No one gets old. Everybody's happy. We don't hear words like caring and compassion any more. We just hear ‘Ah, you're O.K. Pull up the ladder, Jack.’”
To be sure, the spot couldn’t have worked if Reagan’s approval ratings had not already bounced back from their 1983 low. He stood well above 50% approval for all of 1984. As ad guru Tony Schwartz maintained, political ads only work if they resonate with what people are already feeling. Schwartz himself had used that principle twenty years earlier to deliver his memorable—and devastating—campaign spot for Lyndon Johnson, resonating with voter worries about Goldwater’s finger on The Button. (Goldwater’s name is never mentioned.)
Officially titled “Peace, Little Girl,” but better known as “Daisy.” It aired only once—on NBC on September 7, 1964. (HD scan from 35mm)
What the Biden spot needed to accomplish
Had they chosen to, Biden’s team had the opportunity to point with pride at a long list of his achievements. (And on their campaign website, they do just that.)
But rather than frame Biden’s second term as a reward for what he accomplished in his first, they frame it as an urgent mission—to defend America’s freedoms from “attack by an extreme movement.” Just as LBJ’s “Daisy” never called out Goldwater by name, Biden’s “Flag” doesn’t name Trump or even the Republican party. It doesn’t have to. The connection between “extreme movement” and Republican Party is already in the viewer’s head. (Besides, Trump’s name is carried on the flags of the rioters.)
Here’s the state of play in the U.S. electorate:
The Republican Party, captured by its most extreme wing, appealing to fear, bitterness, race-hatred, xenophobia—and advocating unfettered gun-ownership, and a total ban on abortions—positions which alienate some of their own voters.
The Democratic Party, building a coalition across its moderate and progressive wings—and advocating for a range of popular policy positions from abortion rights and gun safety regulations, to health care, environmental protection and voting rights. As a YouGov survey has shown, many of the most popular Democratic policy positions are also supported by a majority of Republican voters—albeit with smaller margins.
A base of independent voters who prefer not to affiliate with either party, but who, when polled, tend to favor Democratic policies.
The spot is aimed at most of the above—at everyone outside of the MAGA movement—Democrats, independents, and Republicans. Where Trump tells his cult, “I am your retribution,” Biden assures the rest of us, “I will defend our democracy with every fiber of my being.”
Regardless of how they poll on issues, most voters, across the spectrum, tend to zone out when presented with the details of policy issues. Sen. Warren’s “I have a plan for that…” never caught on. Secretary Clinton’s detailed, wonkish policy papers languished on her website, largely ignored. They’re still online. Still ignored. (You didn’t click that link, did you?)
Effective campaigns are not about the past. They are about the future. Effective messages are not about the candidate. They are about the voter. The makers of this spot get that. They put Biden forward as a champion of three issues that were proven winners in the midterms: abortion rights, gun safety, and democracy. The ad is about what kind of future we choose.
Why did they blur the Presidential Seal?
Rich Binell emailed me about my first post on the Biden ad, saying he found the blurred Presidential Seal disturbing. “Who’s hiding what,” he asked, “and why?”
Any number of MAGAts on Twitter will offer some variant of this explanation: “Presidential Seal is blurred, because Biden is a fraud and not the real president.” It doesn’t seem to occur to any of these numskulls to ask why a cabal clever enough to steal the presidency would then go to the extra effort of hanging out a sign admitting to it.
Why, then, did they blur the seal? The answer lies in 18 U.S. Code § 713 which governs the use of official seals of the U.S, the president, vice president, Senate, and House. Just as any corporation will have corporate identity guidelines that dictate how, the company logo can be displayed, the feds have Code §713 to govern use of official seals. Using an official seal “to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.”
While, so far, Biden has been scrupulous in keeping the presidential seal out of his campaign, his predecessor showed no such compunction. He even delivered hia nomination acceptance speech at the White House, with the seal affixed to his lectern.
To be fair, President Obama also used the seal at campaign events. Although in 2010, Robert Gibbs said that he wouldn’t do that, in the heat of his re-election campaign, Obama changed his mind. (He continued avoiding using the seal at fundraisers.)
Trump, on the other hand, to uses the seal willy-nilly (maintining the fiction that he is still president).
It should be noted, however, that it wasn’t Trump who introduced the presidential seal to golf. Every president from Nixon on—even Jimmy Carter—has ordered custom golf balls with their signature and the presidential seal to offer as gifts. If you’d like to complete your collection, you can find most of them today on eBay.
Or you can order one (with the seal of the U.S, not the presidential seal, and without a signature) direct from the White House Gift Shop ($6.50).